


Wish You Were Here

by ohvienna



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:44:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohvienna/pseuds/ohvienna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor buys a postcard while stuck in 1969. There's angst. Martha sells him said postcard. There's more angst. Just a short little fic about their various obstacles and issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wish You Were Here

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Livejournal 6/12/2007.

“I did watch it. Baby elephant. What can you do, right?” Martha slammed the till shut.

“My husband thought it was hilarious. I think he was laughing harder than the kids!” The woman chuckled as she waited, hand held out in front of her.

Martha handed the not particularly unfriendly customer her change, and smiled brightly. 

“Here you are then.”

The customer took her change, returned the smile, and turned to the door, her exit unnecessarily heralded by the ringing of the bell. Martha’s smile faded faster than she could blink.

She hunched over, propping her head up with her arm. “Just pick one already.”

The Doctor spun the postcard stand around for the umpteenth time. “I can’t just pick one. This is an integral part of my timey-wimey detector. Won’t function without the most precise--”

“Are you really going to keep calling that thing your…timey-wimey detector?”

When he looked up at her, his expression could only be taken as one of confusion. “But it is a timey-wimey detector. No sense calling it something it’s not. Don’t like the name?” 

Martha rolled her eyes. “No, it’s brilliant.” She inhaled. “Doctor, you’ve been staring at those rubbish postcards for an hour.”

He spun the stand around, pulled one out. “The Tower of London. You know, really not so bad as all that.” He spun it around again. Piccadilly Circus. And again. A double-decker bus. Again. The Beatles. “We should go say hello to Ringo. He owes me one.” 

There was one postcard the Doctor kept eyeing in his peripheral vision. Vast ocean and blue skies. Coastline to the right. It seemed oddly out of place, and almost mocking with its chipper text. _Wish you were here_ , it read. He reached down, finally picking it up for a closer look. “Wish I were a lot of places,” he mumbled to himself, brushing his fingers across the words. Across the ocean.

“That one’s nice. It’ll go great on your lunch box.”

The Doctor shook his head, looked up. “Timey-wimey detector.” He moved over to the counter. 

“What’s so integral about a postcard, anyway?”

“It’s protection. For the exposed side. An ornamental, aesthetically pleasing barrier against…”

Martha glared.

The Doctor dropped the act. “Oh, what’s the point? It’s pretty.” 

“So, it’s actually not important?”

“Not really, no.” He leaned against the counter and placed the postcard down in front of Martha.

“I thought you didn’t like beaches. When I asked if you wanted to go to--”

“They’re alright,” he interrupted, “Ring it up, would you? Got some time detecting to do.”

“And you’re going to pay for that then, right?”

The Doctor dug deep into his pockets.

“Appears not. Anyway, you’re the one with the employee discount.”

Martha threw some change into the cash register. She tapped her finger against the card.

“I wish I was there, too. When we get out of 1969, you are taking me to a planet made entirely of beaches. Only beaches, everywhere you look. Just sand and water, far as the eye can see.”

The Doctor smiled the slightest of smiles. But it was only on his lips. All the light was absent from his eyes as he slid the postcard off the counter, stuffed it in his jacket, and headed for the door. 

“Perhaps.”

The bell rang. The door closed.

Martha propped her chin up with her hands, resuming a position she had become much too familiar with. One of perpetual waiting. Waiting for the bell to ring, for a new customer to alleviate the boredom. Waiting to become unstuck. Waiting. For the Doctor. 

_Stuck, always stuck. And not just in time, either. Me here, him, always in his head. Anywhere and everywhere else._

She looked out through the glass door, at the space where the Doctor had just been, his back turned, hands in pockets, head slouched down. She watched the people walking past, packages in hand, chins up, all heading somewhere. 

_Why can’t you just be_ here?


End file.
